Davis: A Constitutional Convention would pander to special-interest groups

Vote “No” on Nov. 7 to oppose holding a New York Constitutional Convention. It is wasteful and unnecessary.

If approved, next year every state senate district will have to elect three delegates to attend a convention the following year in Albany. If those delegates agree upon an amendment the public still has to vote for approval. Millions of special-interest dollars in delegate elections. Millions more to staff and run the convention. For what?

We already elect people to represent us in Albany who can amend the state constitution at any time, without a convention. Two terms of the Legislature just have to vote for an amendment and then it goes to the public for approval.

So, why all the commotion? Because special-interest groups are trying to hijack our democracy. For example, look at the group demanding public employees convicted of crimes forfeit their pensions. Nobody condones criminal behavior, but employees work 20, 30 or more years to earn those pensions. Private-sector pensions are not forfeited and in 1940 the New York constitution was amended to protect public employees’ pensions too. Nevertheless, the forfeiture group has had a lot of success. Legislation was passed in 2011 that allows pension forfeiture for public officials hired thereafter who are convicted of a crime related to public office. The forfeiture group also successfully lobbied the Legislature for a constitutional amendment to be put on the ballot this year (without a convention) that all present and future elected officials who are so convicted will forfeit their pensions.

But, in this age of extremism, enough is never enough. Some public employees still have constitutional protections and the only way to completely strip it from all of them is to amend the constitution. Since the Legislature won’t, the forfeiture group needs a convention to circumvent the Legislature, elect its own delegates and rewrite the constitution to fit its whims. Of course, if we have a convention there’s no guarantee which special interest group’s delegates will win or what amendments they will propose.

Actually, that’s more than wasteful and unnecessary, it’s downright scary.

Davis is a founding partner at the Islandia law firm of Davis & Ferber, LLP.

3 comments

New York desperately needs to reevaluate its state constitution. Most important is the weak protections of property rights and the associated obsolete and archaic local zoning authority. New York State should cure many of its ills by transferring zoning authority to counties and cities, like most states; and rid the state of too many layers of municipal governments that are inefficient and ineffective.

“New York has fallen behind the rest of the country on adult-use cannabis, medical marijuana and industrial hemp because we have no voter-initiated ballot measure process in New York. California and Nevada are now leading the way, while New York watches its neighbors in Massachusetts and Maine implement regulated programs that protect their children from under-age access, protect their adult consumers from contaminated products, provide their cannabis workers with union protections and remediate social injustices of the war on drugs,” said Jerome W. Dewald, RRNY’s Executive Director. “Proposition 1 gives New York a once-in-a-generation chance for the people to take the lead when the legislature refuses to do so. We think this is the only realistic chance for New York to regain a leadership role in cannabis legislation by 2019.”